Legacies
by Monty Twain
Summary: FINAL CHAPTER FINALLY DONE! OMG! Watson and Holmes deal with his family. Drama ensues.
1. Chapter 1

A Legacy

There were a few minutes after he picked up the telegram which he spent reading and rereading it, then pacing a little with it as if wondering what to do. I wasn't surprised when he cleared his throat to speak in the least, but on looking up from the paper I was taken aback by his solemnity.

"Holmes, it is rare that I ask something of you."

"Quite right, I remember both times. You asked me to give up cocaine and to be your best man. Both were reasonable requests. What might I do for you, my dear Watson?"

"Well, it won't be pleasant. I'm wondering if you might be more useful here, so that you could call me away on an imaginary emergency, but no, they'd know I was lying"-

"But you aren't a very good liar, Watson. Who are you talking about?"

"My family."

"Why are you considering lying to them?"

"Because… because they are difficult and I dislike going to visit them intensely. No, you'll have to come. You will come, won't you, Holmes?" The plea was coupled with a pause in his stride. He clearly couldn't concentrate on anything but my answer and his own troubled thoughts.

"Of course."

"Then pack a bag. It is my mother's birthday party. She hasn't invited you, but I'll say that we're only passing through the town and can't stay long. I have a patient with consumption and you have a pressing case. Yes. No." He was pacing again now. "Just say you can't discuss it, it's too important. Maybe then I won't have to lie about the patient- you're better than me at all that. We'll stay one night and then leave early morning. Perhaps we could leave before anyone wakes up."

"Why are you so keen to avoid them?"

"You'll see. No- you probably won't from them, more from their effect on me."

Monty'sLineThingyThatUsuallyHasASarcasticCommentAttached

For the next few minutes we packed in silence, and we were soon out in a cab on our way to the station. To try and ease my friend's clearly troubled mind I discussed crime, the contents of the papers, anything that might distract him, but Watson was quite miserable, not at all himself. Eventually he decided to tell me more about our destination, more of a warning than anything else.

"Holmes?"

"Yes?"

"You might witness a different side of me than the one you are used to seeing this evening, but you must understand that the way I behave has reason to it… You do trust that, Holmes?"

"I can't imagine you as unreasonable, Watson."

"Well… I can't guarantee I will be pleasant company tonight." He looked out of the window, a frown creasing his boyish face, and I wondered what, or _who_ might provoke an action from him that he would fear I might be ashamed of.

Later, when we got out of the cab, Watson stopped to pluck a piece of thread from my lapel, an as if to add insult to injury straightened my tie for me.

"What does it matter if I'm wearing a fibre of the London cab upholstery, Watson?"

He paused to inspect his own reflection in the window of the cab, and turned only when it pulled away. "You represent me since I last spoke to them. Ideally I'd like you to look _perfect_. Holmes, you naturally charm people you need to, so I don't need to tell you about that, but I don't want them to be able to criticize _anything_ about you at all."

"Surely you should represent yourself, Watson?" I was daunted by the task of being a walking advertisement for someone I considered to be the kindest and most charming man alive. I felt as though the Watson's were going to stand and give me marks out of ten, and I suspect this is how my friend felt. He had stood with his back to the house and was plainly ignoring its massive presence.

"You are more impressive. Besides, when they see me, they see the boy they once loved –myself in my teens- or my older brother." Ah. So this was what it was about. I had gathered from the only other conversation we had had about him that Watson was very fond of his brother.

"Were you alike?" I asked softly. He didn't answer immediately and turned to the house he had grown up in. "Watson."

"Very much so… for a time."


	2. Chapter 2

Swan's Nest House is East-facing, and the two o'clock sun seemed to hide behind its chimney pots. Watson walked up the garden path diagonally so he didn't step its shadow, which I supposed he must have done as a boy, and so did I because for a moment I imagined myself at tree-climbing age following my best friend.

Watson knocked the door with a peculiar rhythm and peered shamelessly through the letter-box. Eventually he saw something and breathed a sigh of relief. "It is my younger brother, Charles- you'll like him." I got the feeling that either Watson didn't expect me to like any of the others, or he didn't.

The door opened and a man with Watson's kind eyes was revealed, Charles Watson. He had chalk on his cuff and a thinness about his hair that made me think him a schoolmaster and this was later confirmed, though his clothes were too old for him to be any higher than a deputy head. He was paler and had darker hair than Watson did, and he kept his youthful face despite flecks of grey about his temples and crow's feet on the corners of his eyes.

"Hello, hello! John, it's been far too long- and who might this be? Would it be presumptuous to think I am addressing Mr Sherlock Holmes?"

I knew my queue. "It would not, Mr Watson," I said, shaking the man's hand. He was as thin as Watson was when I first met him, with narrow shoulders. I stepped back a little and the two men embraced with genuine affection.

They broke apart and Watson spoke for the first time. "Who's here, Charlie?"

"Oh, everyone. Mother's upstairs so best wait until she's ready, Emma's in the garden playing with the girls, Jenny's through talking to Uncle David-"

"-David's here." There was a certain flatness about my friend's tone that suggested he didn't favour his uncle's presence, though the list of names had completely alienated me.

"He's on his best behaviour, and it is Mother's party." Mr Watson looked at his brother and paused, having noticed what I had. "Come on, John." He waited for Watson to look up. "I was about to say it wouldn't go amiss to congratulate Jenny and go and find Robert Lee, who holds your newest nephew?"

"What's his name?"

"Thomas. Even mine will hardly remember you, John." Though he wasn't angry with him, there was a hint of sadness. Now he was leading us through to the dining room, where a portly man with a moon face, presumably David Watson, was talking to the woman Jenny, whom though I suspected her to be Watson's sister looked nothing like him. She was tawny-haired, sharp-nosed and small. Watson tapped my wrist and we stepped forward.

"Hello David, Jenny. This is my friend Mr Sherlock Holmes, and Holmes; this is my uncle David Watson and my sister Jennifer Lee." We all smiled, and I shook David Watson's hand.

"I suppose John's told you all about us," said the fat man.

"He hasn't, actually." I thought this the best course of action. "Only in passing."

"Perhaps he's more of a mystery than you thought, then." David Watson smirked at me and I saw Watson's eyes flash with anger out of the corner of my eye. "You've missed out on a couple of stories from your own chronicler." I decided not to answer and the conversation moved on.

It was Watson's duty to speak. "Congratulations on your son, Jenny. Thomas Lee is a fine name."

"I sensed the next generation needed a boy." She smiled. "But congratulations are hardly needed anymore, seeing as he can walk." I flinched for him. Charles Watson, whom I'd grown to like more and more as the moment had gone on -if only in comparison- cleared his throat.

"Come on John, Mr Holmes, Emma's been dying to hear about London's fashion." He walked away and I think we were both relieved to follow. "Well, I'm not qualified to discuss the length of ladies' dresses, but I think it high time you came to visit…" Watson paused on hearing a tread on the stair, and suddenly we were confronted with the huge presence of the tiny Mrs Watson.

"Well, now my first son has arrived, the party is complete."

I felt Watson's hand at my elbow clench a little.

MontyTwain'sLineThingy-DesignedAndPersonalisedByHimself

Author's Note: This may take several chapters and unless I hurry up and finish this evening then you may have to wait until I arrive home on Sunday night, so probs no updates until Monday. Sorry about that, and believe me this is a really good one [I think]. Hope you stay to enjoy the show.


	3. Chapter 3

I'm nearly as sorry as you are that this chapter had to be drawn out like **BLOOD FROM A STONE. **I had all of these little moments that would look fine in my notebook, the when typed up would seem ridiculous, forcing me to remove them. To reward you, I am finishing this story TODAY, and see that now I've promised I really have to. In my anger,

Warnings: I can't do Watson angst without some Holmes fluff. Also no little children were harmed in the making of this programme, though a teapot is smashed, and a family relative is hit. Yes, perhaps the one you are imagining.

AreYouSittingComfortably?

IT was a quiet fear, the kind that widened eyelids and stretched back over the ears. It was probably inappropriate to be scared of a woman, but this particular woman gave off such an air of busty authority that she quite terrified me for a moment. The denial of poor Hugo Watson Jr.'s existence could not have been an accident. She must have crafted her sentence carefully through her thick dyed lips specifically to smack the air.

She carried on as if my dear Watson hadn't just squeezed the blood from my arm in suppressed anger: "…And _you_ must be the celebrated detective who has distracted my son from his lifelong career."

For a moment I thought she might attach my name to my deemed profession, but this wasn't to be the case. "That I would be-" I sighed with relief as Watson released my arm "-Mrs Watson. It is a pleasure to finally meet you."

"I don't think John agrees. He is embarrassed by us, you know. That's why he moved to London- to escape the Anglicised Scotsmen he used to call his family further north."

"Now, mother, Holmes may not yet have spotted your caustic humour for what it is yet," replied Watson with a lukewarm smile and a weakened voice. He approached his mother to kiss her cheek with the same careful footwork that I have had the occasion to notice in lion tamers and American bear hunters.

As conversation struggled out of the ditch, Mrs Watson sat down as if the room tired her, watching me very closely whilst Watson and I made small-talk with the rest of the family. It was like having a peacock at your feet- she was too grand now to ignore. I took the chair to her left.

"So, Mr Holmes, John's stories suggest a clever man."

"Sometimes I look through my past notes and think that I was." I laughed terribly- a high-pitched splutter that made Watson pause mid-sentence to look at me.

"Very good. So you're a wit then as well." She paused for her sarcasm to settle. "The stories were not fictitious."

"I'd say they were- Watson always made himself seem less useful than he was. We are in fact quite on the same plane."

"He doesn't deserve such loyalty." I looked up sharply, but she smiled at me and I understood that this was meant to be seen as a joke. I laughed only slightly better this time around.

JustImagineALineThatHasn'tBeenDeleted

David Watson got up to get some port and perhaps I followed a little too eagerly with Watson and his brother for one. My friend was still not very happy.

"She shouldn't do that- she knows I don't like it, Charlie," the poor man hissed at his brother as soon he entered the dining room. "I'm _not_-"

"You were always the most responsible. The doctor of the family." David Watson had a certain grace about him; in his words and his physical movement- he did everything slowly and precisely. I found it unsettling. There was another sentence on the ether I didn't quite catch that the brothers had. They flinched. "Would you like a drink, Holmes?"

He'd dropped my prefix in that debonair way of his, and there was nothing I could do about it. "Yes please, Mr Watson." He picked up three glasses at once in his chubby though almost effeminate hands, and handing me one first, then Watson, then the teacher, before turning to pour two more.

"Charles, will you fetch Robert? I'm sure he wouldn't want to miss the gentleman's clique which is forming in his absence." He did so, and Watson leaned on the high hard back of a dining chair, the glass hanging between his fingers. "Now, Holmes, I think it must get confusing there being so many Mr Watsons about. You must call me David."

This made Watson turn to me with a look of urgency. He spoke up. "David, of all people I should be the one to drop my surname-"

"-but _Wat_-"

"You don't have to, Holmes, it's just for convenience."

David smiled provocatively. "You hear, Holmes? You're not to call him that once you leave."

"He can call me what he likes, David, he can call me Lucifer though I know he won't do."

I realised that this sudden evaluation of our friendship was just another power-play to unnerve my friend, and that he had risen to the challenge admirably. Just then Charles Watson came through with Robert Lee, Watson's brother-in-law. "John, you may of course call me Sherlock," I said in an undertone, both names sounding unnatural, rolling on my tongue like marbles.

We turned to the latest arrival. Lee was a solicitor with thick black glasses who made his profession known more in his arrogance than his typing and writing calluses, his immaculately tailored suit or his sobriety. He smiled at me and Watson, then reused his smile on David, which meant it was slightly weaker, like a recycled teabag. He shook our hands and I'm fairly sure he didn't speak to me again, except over the head of his small boy as I scooped him up and rescued him from hot water spilling as Watson dropped a teapot, to say "thank you".

I shan't bother to record all the little conversations we had with the monstrous family over lunch, but as it is of special interest to me I shall say there were thirteen instances in the dialogue that forced Watson's face to fall, four of which involved the presence or pointed absence of his brother, six were followed promptly by apologies from whatever member of the family it was to assure me that Watson hadn't in the past been some vagabond as the conversation occasionally suggested when fuelled by either David or Mrs Agatha Watson, two of which made him lift his hand to cover livid anger, and the last forced him to leave the table.

The family, as polite society always infuriatingly do, ignored him. Aside from the flash of excitement in David's eyes, and the annoyance in Jenny Watson's, there was not recognition in any one family member of my Watson's apparent plight, not even Charles, whom I looked to rather appealingly. As a result of this lack of action, it was a full ten agonizing minutes of expecting him back and pushing my food around my plate before I was able to excuse myself and find my friend.

He wasn't, as I anticipated, in the bathroom, nor in the room second from that, which in conversation he'd said had been his as a child. This didn't stop me from stepping into the room and looking around. It was, to all intents and purposes, a _blank_ room, a _guest_ room, with no traces of the child who once lived there. The only clue was the bookshelf. There were hundreds of books- Hardy, the Bell brothers*, George Elliot, Shakespeare after Shakespeare, the Greek Legends, Moby Dick, poetry books and then books about writing, all of which were on the shelf at eye level to a boy. The only thing that struck me was the lack of books on surgery. There were, however, three or four on General Practice, even an architectural book on the layout of the hospital.

Suddenly I felt my senses tingle and realised I had been here long enough. I needed to find my friend.

Having checked upstairs, I went downstairs, and after checking the living room I picked the lock to the French windows so that I could get onto the garden without having to go through the little alcove in the dining room. I didn't want to confront the Watsons with the notion that their banter had forced their son to leave, especially when I felt so unaccommodating towards their selfishness.

It was in the garden, bathed in orange sunlight, that I found Watson. He was in the corner closest to the door to the dining room, but out of sight from the windows, and had his back turned. His face was up against the wall. It wasn't until I had sneaked under the windows and was past the babble of conversation that I heard him crying.

Watson's tears have an alarming effect on me. I tend to drop everything and talk nonsense to try to make him stop. The two instances that I had the misfortune to witness him in such a state were on the night after I came back from my three years travelling, and once out of pain when, whilst chasing a gymnast, he was struck with a billiard cue on his wounded leg.

Those moments had really been lapses, forgivable bursts of emotion due to dreadful circumstance. Now, Watson seemed to be coming apart.

"Watson…"

"Holmes, I don't want you to see me like this." He spoke in that kind of desperate quietness one claws to before losing control. I came closer and he backed away, pushing his shoulder against the wall in an odd expression of emotion. "Please."

"Watson-" I touched his shoulder tentatively and he turned away as I feared he might. "Good God, man, there isn't anything I would judge you harshly for! You've already proved yourself to me. Tell me what happened, Watson. Tell me why you didn't want to be a surgeon as a boy, tell me what your brother did, how your family reacted… tell me why they are all in England when you said they were gone years ago. Explain the inconsistencies in your story, Watson, or I'll deduce them!"

He took a deep breath and sank down to the ground, squatting down away from the sunlight onto the cold and shady cobbles. "All right, Holmes. All right."

TO BE CONTINUED…


	4. Chapter 4

After being caught trying to quietly come back to the fandom, I am here to hopefully give you the final instalment of the tale _'Legacies'_. I am dreadfully sorry about the three-month holdup, and all I can say is that this is what it is like trying to fight your way to success in this puny island. But you don't care about that, you want the story, and I don't blame you.

Watson spun me around by the shoulder whilst he made himself more presentable, and through a handkerchief began to tell his story:

"Well, we'll start with the least important. I suppose through our acquaintance you have witnessed some disappointment on my part-" he nudged me to say I could turn around again"-that I couldn't continue my service after Maiwand. That wasn't false, I genuinely want to help."

I stooped slightly to look him right in the eye. "I believe you, Watson - John - Lucifer." We shared a little smile.

"The reason I decided to be a surgeon, the reason I joined the army, and the reason my family mistrust me all have one thing in common. My brother." I watched him forcibly relax. "I never really spoke of my family, and I thank you for never calling me a hypocrite all those years ago and since. But you do know he was an alcoholic, and he was even -even _before _he drank, if you could understand that. Hugo wasn't really made for school; we used to say, because he always got into trouble. He'd sort himself out in an apprenticeship. Then we'd say that Hugo wasn't made for an apprenticeship, he was a better sort to think for himself rather than being told what to do. And when Charlie and Hugo had rows, and I broke it up, I always said it was because Charles was undermining his authority as older brother. I think Charles resented that for a long until he got much older. Still, he never knew that Hugo got the beatings and not him.

"When Hugo didn't come back with a successful business on the new railways up north as he had promised, but had rented a little dwelling two minutes away from the local public house and done nothing but walk to and from it for some months, my parents withdrew his allowance. I had visited him three times and all three times found his lifestyle marvellous, as of course was appropriate as a seventeen year old boy. He wore his best suit all the time, I thought when I visited, and I thought he always wore good suits. It took me two visits to realise that he didn't have any other suits that weren't damaged or smelling or worn out. But these are just little things. My mother banned me from seeing him, and the last time I saw him I paid for it myself, and took him out for dinner. I was eighteen-" my eyes widened at the thought, and he tightened his lips to form a kind of grimace"- I was eighteen, and well on my way to becoming a doctor, just like my father. My father visited him and tried to help him, but he knew what he was looking at.

"I was at university most of the next few years, and through some argument with David I rarely came home. My father sent me letters, and I ignored most of them, only coming home for occasions when my presence was absolutely needed. It was on one such occasion I must have realised that it was my presence needed and not my brother's, but he and I had kept correspondence, and so I merely thought he had escaped what I considered a bore." Tired of standing, I sat down next to my friend and put my back against the wall. He wordlessly leaned his shoulder against mine, as if the story was too heavy when put together with his own body. When I was quite comfortable, he leaned forward a little, putting his ands over his knees, and continued.

"We looked very similar- very definite Watson boys with all of our father's features and none of our mother's, and certainly nothing of David- and so friends began to ask about my progress, rather than his, and my transition was complete. I wasn't perfect, but I wasn't him.

"That was the year my father died. I loved him very much. After the funeral I viewed myself as having nothing whatever in common with the bulk of my family, my alienated younger sister hated me, I saw my younger brother as a coward and my mother's pet. He was by then a fine, responsible young schoolmaster who had done me no wrong in his adult life, but that meant little to me. A month later the mysterious manner by which my brother had lived dried up- I have always assumed it was my father sending him money secretly- and he arrived unceremoniously back in my life, with a top hat and no coat." He shrugged. "I still worshipped him, but I knew enough that he was up to no good, and through my father's memory I gave him money to buy his own lunch whilst I was away, if only that. My social life plummeted and I became a model student. And then it all kicked off.

"I didn't trust him. I should have, should have trusted him. It wouldn't have mattered to me if I hadn't known." He rubbed his chin nervously. I gripped his arm, wanting to say something comforting, but not knowing what to say. "I followed him, you see. I saw everything he did for a whole week. He gambled at my favourite betting shop for whether he would eat, and spend the other half of his money on a bottle of scotch, before wondering off into town and getting drunk. By four he would be very drunk, and if he had won his little bet he would go and have something to eat to try and sober up. I once watched my brother urinate outside my own gate before going in. I saw him barter with old whores before going into their houses. I saw everything. I resolved my mind to confront him next time I saw something, but I always said next time to myself. I didn't do anything before it was too late.

"One day I followed him and he didn't go home. At six o'clock, when I was supposed to arrive home after my lectures, he didn't go home. I couldn't leave him, he was too drunk. And then… then I saw him talking to a policeman. The policeman seemed to be telling him not to drink in the street because of the women and the time of day. It was a cordial enough conversation until Hugo hit the man. The policeman struggled to his feet and Hugo started shouting. Even when the man got handcuffs on him, Hugo kicked at him. He suddenly remembered he had to come home to me.

"The policeman must have been too proud to whistle for help dealing with another drunkard, and it wasn't until I saw blood on his head. I ran out, and saw the policeman- I _saw it, _Holmes- strike Hugo on the head with his bludgeon, very hard. And he was too drunk to call out, too drunk to feel the pain or to know I was there, and he grabbed the bludgeon and struck the officer back. As soon as he calmed down he passed out. I found myself stood in the middle of the street with two bodies on either side of me, and then I realised that the policeman was nearly dead. I called a cab and took them…" His voice faded away, forcing me to lean closer. He whispered. "He was dead, the policeman. The court was good to give Hugo manslaughter, good not to give me anything. Mother wouldn't pay for his bail, obviously, and promptly wanted nothing to do with me, though Charles was campaigning for my forgiveness all the while. He sent me letters, at least, not like the rest of them, and some of them-"

he was tearing up again "-some of them were very kind. I joined the army to get away, to be in a place that I could hide one witnessed murder with a hundred others, and prevent every one I could along the way…" he stopped. He had been talking fast, hardly breathing the whole time and ending up gasping between sentences.

"That's when you were shot," I said.

"Yes, that's when I was shot."

"That's when you came back and met me."

"Yes."

"That's when you came into my house, with nothing but charm and two bullets in your side, to stop my own addiction, filling the black spaces left by being my only friend. That's when you started picking my coat up off the floor and hanging it up, started ordering my papers, started accompanying me to the opera when you didn't like who was playing, started criticising my arrogance, started making me take cases I didn't think were interesting at first, started making me eat, started sharing the burgundy with me despite preferring brandy, - that's when you started sitting on the edge of my bed and reading when I locked myself up in a black mood, wasn't it?"

"I suppose it was."

"So I am your success story then?"

"Yes."

"Then do I, as a success, make up for an attempt at success with someone far more delicate and precious than myself?"

"Maybe."

"Am I your only success story, Watson?"

"No, you are not."

"Then does _that_ make up for it?"

"Perhaps it does."

"Come on, then, Watson. I'm disgusted by them, and they haven't noticed our absence for an entire hour. I blame your mother's hosting for your state." We stood up, and I reluctantly released his forearm where I had gripped it for so long.

"Should we say goodbye?" he asked me with apprehension. I looked at his face, so sad and tired, and something in me hardened against the rest of the Watsons.

"No," I said, and we didn't. We stole under the sill, through the rooms, diagonally across the garden and onto the lane, away from the house, caught a cab that rattled over the road onto the carriageway into the London hum, to Baker Street, back home.

And as if by magic, Mrs Hudson had her two hungry lodgers [or sons] supper ready when we got in.


End file.
